After the home opener for the 2019-2020 London nationals season ended in disappointment with a 5-4 loss to the St. Mary’s Lincolns last Wednesday night the Nationals were looking for their first win on home ice this season and they had a big bounce back game against the Sarnia Legionnaires at the western fair sports center on Wednesday night in a dominating 7-0 victory. The nationals would quickly establish the pace of play for the night as they held the legionnaires to only four shots through the opening 20 minutes which saw the Nationals score two goals.
Although the Legionnaires currently sit at the bottom of the GOJHL western conference the nationals couldn’t take any opponent for granted nationals goalie Devyn Clark who got the start for London in this game admits he wasn’t entirely sure how sarnia would come out of the gate in this game. ” Yeah i wasn’t completely sure how sarnia would come out of the gates but obviously I looked them up before the game and saw that they had a couple of close games against Chatham and i think Leamington.”
The nationals would not let up as the game got into the second period as they continued to apply a lot of offensive zone pressure as London Knights second round draft pick Logan Mailloux would make it a three goal game midway through the second period. When asked about the play in front of him Clark said ” Yeah Obviously when the guys in front controlled the game and weren’t afraid to block shots took a lot of pressure of of me as they only allowed i think it was 15 shots.”
After sarnia only trailed London by three goals as the two teams went to the third period the Nationals would open the flood gates as they would score four third period goals to put the game away. London would see seven different players record goals on the score sheet as Griffen Sinden ,Michael McKnight, Logan Mailloux, Josh Leblanc, Cohen Kiteley, Josh Castle and Cameron Krupa scored the goals for the nationals.
despite the nationals losing their home opener last week Nationals goalie Devyn Clark who recorded a shutout hopes a performance like this leads to many more like it ” Yeah obviously the home opener didn’t go our way like you said but a performance like this gives us lots of confidence and i hope we can keep this up for the rest of the season.” The Nationals will next be in action against the Strathroy Rockets on the road in Strathroy on Saturday night.
